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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

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Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#771

Post by _fat_santa »

flyinghamster wrote: post #710
javier123454321 wrote: post #661

Australia seems on a steep decline and a testing ground for western authoritarianism. Look at the requirements to leave the country, you need to jump through hoops and prove that your presence is required outside to be granted permission to leave. This should be unacceptable for anyone, whether you are Australian or not.

I just did a quick look, searching (without quotes) "Australia permission to leave" on DDG. It looks to me like you're conflating emergency restrictions for COVID [0] with something like the exit visas that the former USSR used and Russia still uses. There are a great many people dying in the US at this very moment who were making this same sort of argument, right up until they caught COVID and ended up on ventilator…

The question is then: Why is that an emergency COVID restriction in the first place.

I seriously do not understand where the logic is here. I can understand restricting travel in, but why restrict travel out? In my mind there is no reason why someone LEAVING your country might be a health concern.

But hey we're talking about the folks that thought the logical solution to prevent people from spreading COVID at dog shelters would be to just shoot all the dogs.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#772

Post by mbesto »

satronaut wrote: post #713
Nursie wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll say what I said on the other thread - If you want to present an argument against quarantine being needed or warranted, please go ahead. Checking in on the app is the least intrusive of the three options - quarantine under guard (usually in a hotel, like the one I'm in right now), quarantine at home with police visits tio ensure compliance, or quarantine at home checking in to the app once or twice a day. In this…

you forgot number 4, be treated like an adult and just stay home for 2 weeks and not have the government check to see if you're at home like you're on house arrest while not having committed a crime

This a certainly an option but not a realistic one. Culturally speaking it's impossible to trust anyone (adult or otherwise) to comply with something like this.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#773

Post by TrevorJ »

tikwidd wrote: post #431
fallous wrote: post #401

I've lived to see this kind of thing enacted in a good portion of the Anglosphere and my visceral reaction is to engage in a combination of civil disobedience and a determination to undermine every overstep made. With regards to things like the Aussie requirement for phone check-ins every 15 minutes or they will deploy police to follow up and confirm your location, turn off the phone and make them eat the cost of hav…

You seem to be referring to the South Australia Home Quarantine app [1]. There has been a lot of misinformation circulating about this app recently. I'd just like to clear up some things: The app only applies to people that need to quarantine, not the general population. The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being f…

> The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being forced to use the app.

Oh, well I guess it's ok then. /s

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#774

Post by [deleted] »

Nursie wrote: post #584
chitowneats wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did Australians become like this? In my imagination, my American ancestors were quite similar to yours. And yet...

Become like what? Do you have an argument against quarantine? Would tens of thousands of deaths been better than asking travellers to check in for a couple of weeks on arrival, during a pandemic? I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make. I'm British by the way. The UK also has guarded quarantine centres in hotels for people coming in from what it considers “red zones”

[deleted]

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#776

Post by ls612 »

throwanem wrote: post #756
roody15 wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility.” Sounds just like this was taken from a dystopian novel.

So does a global pandemic that's killed millions worldwide.

Nah that was just taken from the history books. It was our totalitarian response that was from the dystopian novel.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#777

Post by freewilly1040 »

0xy wrote: post #636
0xdeadb00f wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This talk about "Draconian" lockdown in Australia needs to stop. Our privacy and digital rights laws are awful. But the lockdowns are necessary. NSW had upward of 1000+ cases and that's why they're (still) in a strict lockdown. QLD and i beleive WA as well for example are not in lockdown at all because of their much much lower daily cases. Also, "50 cases in a nation of millions"? I dont know where you're getting you…

UK and Israel have proven the "vaccinate your way out of trouble" strategy doesn't work, therefore Australia's lockdown regime will not work either. Australia is, at a massive social and economic cost, delaying death and cases. They are not preventing them. At extremely high levels of vaccination, Australia could see 10-50 daily deaths presuming lockdown is eased. There's already prior evidence, other countries have…

The recent mask study in Bangladesh comes to mind. I hazily remember it finding mask effectiveness at about 10-15%, which caused the press to proclaim that masks work. However against an exponentially growing virus this reduction amounts to a brief delay in transmission.

Happy to be corrected by someone who has looked at that study more deeply.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#778

Post by raxxorrax »

lucideer wrote: post #634
raxxorrax wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not from Australia, but as a citizen the precaution I would take is not to get tested while such a quarantine policy is in effect. Don't know, my country does some checks like calling people on the phone, the rest relies on trust. Seems to work just as well. So I see a lot of room to criticise "the least intrusive" option as well. This is security done wrong. Not slightly wrong, detrimental towards the goal of securi…

> Seems to work just as well. Curious what country this is where things are working "just as well" as Australia? The only major places I can think of in the "developed" world faring similarly* to Australia statistically (deaths per capita) are South Korea & Taiwan; both have had similar citizen monitoring. * leaving out NZ here obvs which is faring significantly better

Japan for example. Also an island, South Korea is too for all practical purposes. Australia isn't even half an Italy, although the population is admittedly mostly concentrated. Still, you have to compare it to countries which can only be reached by ship or plane.

There is merit for harsh policies if you can prevent any case, what NZ did relatively successfully. But admitting that it failed is hard to convey politically.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#779

Post by iechoz6H »

chrisseaton wrote: post #721
satronaut wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a blackout law keeps an enemy bomber from dropping a bomb on my house. IMO, if you say to a rational person "keep your blinds down or else the nazi's will drop a bomb on your house" they'll say "gee that sounds like a good idea." While in modern times, if you say "shut down the economy, increase alcoholism, suicides, mental health issues, homelessness, poverty, and inflation to defeat a virus with over a 99% recovery…

> IMO, if you say to a rational person "keep your blinds down or else the nazi's will drop a bomb on your house" they'll say "gee that sounds like a good idea." Your opinion is not factually supported. A million people were prosecuted for breaking lockdown laws in the UK.

In the first six months of lockdown in the UK 6500 prosecutions were undertaken by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). These included non-lockdown flouting crimes which were simply flagged as 'Corona Virus related', such as threatening to cough on somebody whilst 'infected' and stealing items deemed essential for dealing with the pandemic.[1]

Your assertion that a million people were prosecuted seems far fetched.

1. https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/6500-coronavirus-related-pro...

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#780

Post by Clubber »

amcoastal wrote: post #738
Clubber wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also murder unarmed people with a frequency I'm not comfortable with, so any argument that guns is what makes the police trigger happy has plenty of counter examples of clearly unarmed people getting killed.

Yeah but they always think they have a gun, or so they say. It's not always having a gun pointed at you, it's the threat that it could happen. Very real to American police that keep them on edge, where in other countries that risk is lower so there is less sensitivity to a suspect moving there arm near a pocket or behind their back if they are far away from the officer (which makes it naturally harder to see what the…

There was recently a video of US police attacking a lady in a wheel chair with a stun gun because she was filming them detaining and being rough with her pregnant daughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9piU6_8y61Q

Here's a recent video of a cop throwing a woman to the cement who was in a fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCKu-0oAaOk

Here's a compilation of nearly 1000 incidents of police brutalizing BLM protestors and reporters.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/29/us-police-br...

In these incidents the victim was clearly either unarmed or in no way was threatening the police with a firearm. I think that is just yet another excuse the police use to evade prosecution when brutalizing citizens.

This is nothing new, here's the police brutalizing citizens protesting in Chicago in 1968.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XzdltsTfvE

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